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More Low-Wage Workers Become Their Own Bosses

More Low-Wage Workers Become Their Own Bosses

by Carla MurphyNov 2011In 2006, Teresa Perez and 14 other immigrant women began meeting at the Center for Family Life in Sunset Park to launch an employee-owned housecleaning business. Together, they called it Sí Se Puede. The name was a nod to immigration reform protests then popping up across the country but in Brooklyn, it doubled as a sales pitch to flush homeowners in neighboring Park Slope: We Can Do It!

Within four years, Sí Se Puede's worker-owners, many of whom did not speak fluent English, tripled their wages to as much as...